On Thursday January the 10, 11:00 am EST a press release from Engage In-Game Advertising was sent through a San Francisco Business Wire with the intent of exposing their potentially lucrative future. Engage In-Game Advertising is "the first in-game media company to provide strategic planning and placement services for video game advertising on a market-by-market basis".

Working with not only console, handheld and PC games (such as CS:S and CS), but mobile game properties as well, EIGA looked to open the door to a more lucrative advertising future in gaming, and inadvertently eSports. According to the PR, SUBWAY® took them up on their business offer which lead to a very happy resultant.

"Not only was the campaign incredibly effective in connecting with our target audience, but it was cost effective as well," said Shawn Hazeghazam, a local advertising board chair for SUBWAY®. "Our post-campaign survey showed a 94 percent ad recall among our target audience. For every penny we paid, our brand received one minute of exposure. This in-game program really delivered for us, at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising mediums."

With such a positive outcome, the future looked brighter than ever for eSports and Engage, though, it did not last long. According to some investigative reporting by Chris Remo on shacknews, an email was sent out to Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi that received a less than comforting response.

"At no time did Valve grant permission nor discuss these advertisements with Engage. As such, this is now a legal matter. Advertising or any other commercial use of our games requires our written permission."

The email, while not ruling out the future of such a campaign, does indeed show a fallacy in approach by Engage In-Game Advertising. As of this wire, no statement has been made by Engage in regards to the aforementioned situation.